American Missive

North Korea defied world powers and carried out an underground test Monday of a nuclear bomb Russian officials said was comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
—Associated Press, May 25, 2009.

ATLANTA— Chin held high, and with his tone betraying the fact that he considered his own policy positions to be the moral high road and thus unassailable, Barack Obama confidently declared during the 2008 campaign that the Bush Administration failed to disarm North Korea’s nuclear program because they were too uncompromising by refusing direct, bilateral talks.  Shortly after being elected, the incoming Obama Administration promised to lay out his offer of direct, bilateral talks with North Korea, to be performed largely without preconditions.

The presumption was that once North Korea saw the United States did not always have to flash its teeth, they would relax their pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Surely, this is the embodiment of diplomacy, the very pinnacle of human decency. After all, are not our enemies our enemies precisely because of our own belligerence and our own failing to engage with them thoughtfully? Towards that end, Stephen Bosworth, Obama’s top envoy to North Korea, has extended Obama’s olive branch to North Korea several times, repeatedly affirming that the United States is open to direct talks with the reclusive regime.

And how has North Korea responded to these overtures? According to the Obama Administration not a few short weeks ago, very well!   Mr. Bosworth even said ”everyone is feeling relatively relaxed about where we are at this point in the process.”

But the reality now is much different than the rhetoric.  North Korea appears to have sensed weakness. They have become even more belligerent, test firing missiles and now detonating a massive weapon in an underground bunker.  Given the power void Obama has left open, it appears North Korea is the one angling to set the preconditions for any future talks, to ensure they receive an enhanced standing in the international community prior to considering disarming themselves.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.   My guess is the Obama team will scramble to patch together an international consensus to condemn the matter.  Overall, though, I am afraid his team will continue to dither, recommending direct bilateral talks and failing to appropriately confront this brazen act.  The Administration’s attitude of taking the moral high road frequently leads them to misjudge our enemies, I fear.

The risk in my mind is that North Korea could export their enhanced technology to rogue states and accordingly this development needs to be directly and forcefully confronted.  For my part, I believe we need to regroup and consider whether to call their bluff.   In order to call their bluff, I think we would need to redesignate North Korea a terrorist state and ramp up economic sanctions.  I think we should pursue getting a U.N. resolution drafted that has serious teeth, including the risk of using force, in order to condemn this act.

Nuclear proliferation is a frightening thing.  Others who are currently pursuing nuclear weapons are watching to see how much resolve Mr. Obama really has.  If Mr. Obama does not show sufficient resolve in addressing this forcefully and directly, then there may well be other nuclear states that pop up in the upcoming several years.